Mid-year memorial off Pearl Street Mall remembers nine who died, including five who were found outside

Joy Redstone, bottom left, and Emily Gaud, hug each other while listening to music at a Boulder ceremony Saturday remembering five homeless people who have died outside since April. (Cliff Grassmick / Daily Camera)

The rock that Joy Redstone held aloft was dark, with rough edges, like the life experiences of the homeless men and women that several dozen people had gathered to remember. Inside the stone, gold-colored crystals sparkled.

This was the rock that people would hold as they remembered the homeless people who have died already this year in Boulder.

"We are all broken," Redstone had said as she opened the mid-year homeless memorial. "And we are all sacred."

But finding words was not always easy.

"I've been to so many of these," said a man who gave his name as Bruce. "I've had so many friends pass. I don't know what to say. It's hard to live like this."

Bruce said Janice "CJ" Adams, whose body was found April 4 in the area of the Boulder Creek Path underpass near Arapahoe Avenue and Broadway, was his girlfriend, but he was in jail the night she died.

Recent Boulder homeless deaths

Janice 'CJ' Adams: Adams, 53, was discovered April 4 in the area of the Boulder Creek Path underpass near the intersection of Arapahoe Avenue and Broadway. She died of alcohol poisoning.

Ralph Devore: Devore, 51, was found April 5 just east of the intersection of College Avenue and Broadway on the University of Colorado campus. He died of blunt-force injuries, but the manner of death is undetermined.

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Thomas Cornell: The body of Cornell, 32, formerly of Colorado Springs, was found in a drainage ditch behind the Boulder Target store at 2800 Pearl St. on April 15. The cause and manner of his death are undetermined.

Kathryn J. Fishman: Fishman, 59, died during the night of May 10 sleeping alongside a building at Scott Carpenter Park. She died of multiple drug intoxication.

Daniel Kitlitz: The body of Kitlitz, 27, was found June 14 in an alley off the Pearl Street Mall. The cause of death was heroin intoxication.

"If I had been there, I could have helped her," he said.

Adams was one of five people who died outside in Boulder this spring and one of nine members of the homeless community remembered Saturday.

Typically, activists and homeless people hold a memorial in late December in the Glen Huntington Bandshell in Central Park.

Redstone, a social worker and activist, organized the mid-year memorial after a spate of deaths left many people in the homeless community shaken.

Roughly 40 people gathered in the plaza in front of the old Boulder County courthouse under a blazing sun Saturday afternoon. A hundred feet away, a street preacher on the Pearl Street Mall yelled about damnation.

Pastor Phil Day of Living Waters Church said he was going to out-preach the other man and then said that while he believed many of the same things about hell and heaven and judgement, he also believed in love.

But Day's message of praise and thankfulness for the services that Boulder does provide was tough to swallow for some of the participants.

When Day referred to the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless as "the nicest shelter I've ever seen," David Prowell, in the audience, said quietly, "when it's open."

The Boulder Shelter has 60 beds available year-round in its transitional program, but another 100 beds are only available from October to April.

Activists have said a year-round shelter would save lives. None of those who died outside were killed directly by exposure. The causes of death include drugs, alcohol and blunt force trauma. But if people had an inside place to sleep, other people could intervene in medical situations and people would be less vulnerable to accidents and violence.

Gaya Kirk, who was homeless and then housed and is now homeless again because her Social Security check repeatedly did not arrive on time, said people knew Kathryn Fishman was sick. Some mornings, she couldn't even stand to leave the shelter for the day.

The Boulder County Coroner's Office gave her cause of death as multiple drug intoxication, but Kirk, who uses oxygen and has significant health problems, including cancer, said Fishman's ongoing illness had to contribute to her death.

"Women in my condition and in Kathryn's condition and CJ's condition are very vulnerable," she said.

A man who gave his name as "Breezie" remembered his wife, who died two years ago from throat cancer that was misdiagnosed as strep throat. With early detection, she might be alive. Instead, he has to carry on without her.

"The phrase 'homeless disabled American' should not exist," he said.

Lexi Delgado, a homeless woman who knew several of the people who died, said those who drink are often seeking to numb the pain of very difficult events in their past.

"It's tragic that people have to resort to that to care for themselves because no one else cares for them," she said.

At the end of the memorial, she gathered a smaller group in a circle to let out a primal scream.

"Sometimes you feel like crying," she said. "And sometimes you don't feel like crying. Sometimes you feel like screaming out all your frustrations."

Redstone said every person who died this year was precious to someone.

"I want people to understand that homeless people are human beings, and it's important to mark their passing," she said.

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